Judgment_paragraph 82 · Alessandro Accorinti and Others v European Central Bank (T-79/13)

82For the same of completeness, it should none the less be pointed out that, as the ECB claims, the purchase by an investor of State bonds is by definition a transaction entailing a certain financial risk, because it is subject to the hazards of movements in the capital markets, and that some of the applicants even acquired Greek bonds during the period when the financial crisis of the Hellenic Republic was at its peak. In the light of the economic situation of the Hellenic Republic and the uncertainties concerning it at the time, the investors concerned cannot claim to have acted as prudent and circumspect economic operators, within the meaning of the case-law referred to in paragraph 76 above, able to rely on the existence of legitimate expectations. On the contrary, in the light of the public statements which the applicants invoke in support of their complaints (see paragraph 78 above), those investors were supposed to be aware of the highly unstable economic situation that determined the fluctuation of the value of the Greek bonds which they had acquired and also the appreciable risk of at least a selective default by the Hellenic Republic. Furthermore, as the ECB correctly submits, a prudent and circumspect economic operator apprised of those public statements could not have ruled out the risk of a restructuring of the Greek public debt, given the differing views prevailing in that regard within the euro area Member States and the other bodies involved, such as the Commission, the IMF and the ECB.